You can view the status of your contacts by starting a message thread with them and opening their contact or by going into the group info.

In a statement to TechCrunch, WhatsApp noted that the new About Status feature should be rolling out to Android users in the next week, and to iOS users "soon".

Now users will be able to open the About section of their profile to put a text Status.

After adding Stories, the feature cloned from Snapchat, to Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, the feature is now being added to Facebook and will be displayed in your NewsFeed, representing the biggest change to the app and fundamentally changing how you will use Facebook. The feature is meant to live alongside Stories Status, and only happened because thousands of people submitted complaints to the company.

Facebook has also added a new section to its mobile app called "Direct", which seems to be a another clone of Snapchat's messaging feature.

"We're continuing to build on the new Status feature that gives people fun and engaging ways to share photos, videos and GIFs with their friends and family throughout their day", the company added.

The Beta version of the Android smartphone app already has the old states of WhatsApp. Beta users can access the new About feature through Settings - Profile, which will then show in the chat window just as it did before.

So far the feature has been somewhat successfully replicated on the likes of Instagram, but whether or not it will be just as well-received on Facebook itself remains to be seen.

The Messenger Day feature works exactly like Snapchat or Instagram Stories; a user can upload these posts, which will be visible to all the friends on their Messenger list for 24 hours, after which it will automatically disappear.

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